[ad_1]
Two killed as Russian troops enter outskirts of Sievierodonetsk, mayor says
Two civilians have been killed and five wounded by shelling as Russian troops entered the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said in a statement issued early on Monday morning.
Gaidai said “heavy battles” were taking place as Russian troops attack the city with all weapons and air support, and have entered its southeastern and northeastern areas.
The enemy has used all possible weapons, uses aircraft. However, our military is firmly defending itself to prevent the enemy from entering the country.
Russian shells killed two Severodon residents and wounded five others. Most of them are residents of one block in the old part of the city. They were preparing food in the yard when the shelling suddenly started. Two residents of Sirotyn were seriously injured. All the wounded received home care and are already in hospitals in Donetsk region.
Overnight, at least 12 houses were destroyed in Sievierodonetsk and 18 in neighbouring Lysychansk, he added.
Russian forces are transferring ammunition and equipment in large numbers to the Sievierodonetsk area, the mayor said.
In its most recent operational update as of 6am this morning, Ukraine’s military appeared to confirm that Russian troops were focusing on the city’s northeastern and southeastern outskirts.
EU struggles to agree on Russia sanctions
Nearly four weeks after the European Commission proposed oil sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, EU leaders are struggling to see eye to eye.
Ahead of a two-day summit that begins this afternoon, leaders are attempting to clinch a deal, Reuters reports. The proposal for the EU’s sixth round of sanctions against Russia included an import ban on all Russian oil – sea-borne and pipeline, crude oil and refined products.
The oil embargo could cut off one of Russia’s major revenue streams, which helps finance its military action in Ukraine. Around half of Russia’s 4.7 million barrels per day of crude exports go to the EU, according to Reuters.
Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
To go ahead, all 27 member countries must unanimously agree on sanctions. Hungary has said halting Russian oil imports would pummel its economy. Similarly Slovakia and the Czech Republic have expressed concerns, according to Reuters. All three countries, rely on the southern Druzhba pipeline from Russia for oil supplies.
To come to an agreement, leaders on Monday proposed a compromise that would only ban Russian oil brought to the EU by tankers, with a temporary exemption for pipeline deliveries. But some EU leaders warned it weakened the sanctions, Reuters reports.
Here’s what leaders had to say ahead of the summit:
Several hours before the meeting, Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas said “I don’t think we’ll reach an agreement today”. Whereas Bulgaria’s prime minister Kiril Petkov said “I think it will pass with certain derogations”.
Luke Harding
In a field near Odesa, Igor Shumeyko pointed to where a Russian rocket landed near his farmhouse. It blew out the glass from his windows. Three more missiles fell on a neighbouring plot but did not explode. “I was on my land when the invasion started. The Russians think we are slaves. But our guys are going to kick them out,” Shumeyko predicted.
In the meantime, the 42-year-old farmer acknowledged his industry is facing a heap of war-related problems. The biggest is what to do with this season’s crop, currently growing on his 1,000-hectare estate. The wheat is due to be harvested in late June and July. Next come sunflowers in August and September.
Before Russia’s offensive, Shumeyko would load the grain on to a truck. It would be transported 15 miles from his village of Velykyi Dalnyk to Odesa, Ukraine’s biggest commercial port. From there, food products continued their journey by ship across the Black Sea. Ukraine’s grain helped feed an estimated 400 million people. It went to Egypt, Tunisia and beyond.
Since 24 February, however, this maritime traffic has entirely ceased. Russia has blockaded and occupied all of Ukraine’s seaports. It has seized Mariupol and Berdiansk on the Sea of Azov, which is now a de facto Russian lake, and overrun Snake Island, a strategic base, allowing it to control shipping to and from the Dardanelles strait.
Read more here:
Visiting an Orthodox church in the town of Bucha outside the capital Kyiv, where Russian forces have been accused of killing civilians, France’s new foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, told reporters: “This should never have happened. It must never happen again.”
She added that France would do “everything in its power” to restore peace and hopes “legal proceedings are completed as quickly as possible, so that families can see their loved ones laid to rest in proper graves”, AFP reports.
Since Russia’s invasion, Colonna is the highest ranking French official to visit Ukraine. Later, she is poised to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and her counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to discuss Russia’s blockage of Ukrainian ports and global food security.
Germany will remove some of the red tape involved in visa processing, making it easier for critics of the Russian government to relocate to the country.
While it remains difficult to predict the number of individuals this measure will affect, those able to qualify to stay longer include human rights activists, employees of NGOs and civil society groups, and journalists who have taken a stand against the war, Reuters reports.
The change, announced by an interior ministry spokesperson on Monday, will guarantee a longer stay than the existing 90 days permitted under the Schengen tourist visa.
Ukraine’s former president Petro Poroshenko, who faces treason charges, has been allowed to leave the country to attend a political meeting, Reuters reports.
Poroshenko, the owner of the Roshen confectionery empire and one of Ukraine’s richest businesspeople, is being investigated for his alleged involvement in financing of Russian-backed separatists in 2014-15. In January, a Ukrainian judge blocked a prosecutor’s request for his arrest.
The former president has previously denied the allegations and accused the prosecution of acting “shamefully”. Prior to Russia’s invasion, he accused his successor, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who defeated him in 2019, of seeking to discredit him politically to distract from Ukraine’s widespread problems.
Poroshenko is attending a meeting of the European People’s party in Rotterdam, according to Reuters.
Here are some of the latest images that have been sent to us over the newswires from Ukraine.
European leaders convening in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday for an EU summit to discuss a sixth package of sanctions against Russia will not decide on imposing a cap on gas prices.
According to Reuters, leaders could mandate the commission to study the issue, the commissioner for economy said.
Speaking to reporters from Rome, Paolo Gentiloni said:
If this is agreed among member states, the commission will act very quickly to analyse this possibility.”
After weeks of conflict, a coroner in the besieged Ukrainian city of Chernihiv has become familiar with the way war mangles bodies, charting the damage caused by shrapnel, cluster bombs and bullets.
Yurii Fenenko, 44, dreaded the day he knew would surely come, when the body of someone he was close to was brought in. But he was not prepared for it to be someone he knew so well.
It was the body of a dear friend and wife of one of my best mates. The car she was driving hit a landmine as she was trying to flee a village where she lived near Chernihiv, which had been occupied by the Russians.
Read more of Lorenzo Tondo’s report from Chernihiv here:
Today so far …
- Russian troops have entered the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk. Regional governor Serhiy Gaidai has described the fighting as “very fierce”. Gaidai has also appeared on national television in Ukraine to say “Unfortunately we have disappointing news, the enemy is moving into the city.”
- “Some 90% of buildings are damaged. More than two-thirds of the city’s housing stock has been completely destroyed. There is no telecommunication,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a televised speech last night about the status of Sievierodonetsk.
- European Union members should be able to reach an agreement on a new sanctions package against Russia, including imposing restrictions on Russian oil imports, during talks being held by officials, according to EU top diplomat Josep Borrell. Zelenskiy is set to address European Union leaders at an emergency summit later today to push for new sanctions against Russia.
- Russia’s ministry of defence has claimed it has killed 320 more Ukrainian fighters overnight, as well as striking a shipbuilding plant and destroying 15 tanks located there. They also claim to have shot down 15 Ukrainian drones overnight.
- There are reports that five people have died after shelling in the centre of Donetsk by the Ukrainian military. Authorities there claim that a school was targeted. There are also reports of a large explosion in Russian-controlled Melitopol, which has been blamed on Ukrainian saboteurs.
- Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the military-civilian administration that has been imposed on occupied Kherson, has said that grain is being transported from there to Russia.
- Russia has likely suffered devastating losses amongst its mid and junior ranking officers in the conflict, according to the UK ministry of defence.
- The “liberation” of the Donbas was an “unconditional priority” for Moscow, Russia’s foreign minister said on Sunday, adding that other Ukrainian territories should decide their future on their own. “The liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, recognised by the Russian Federation as independent states, is an unconditional priority,” Sergei Lavrov told French TV channel TF1.
- Lavrov also denied speculation that President Vladimir Putin is ill. Lavrov said that Putin, who will turn 70 in October, appeared in public “every day”.
- French foreign affairs minister Catherine Colonna will meet Zelenskiy in Kyiv later today to express France’s solidarity with Ukraine and offer more support for the country.
- Yesterday Zelenskiy visited troops in Kharkiv and toured the country’s second-largest city to see damage by Russian forces in the Ukrainian president’s first official appearance outside the Kyiv area since the start of the war.
- About 31% of the Kharkiv region’s territory is occupied by Russian forces while 5% has been liberated by Ukrainian defenders, the head of Ukraine’s Kharkiv regional military administration.
- Nato is no longer bound by past commitments to hold back from deploying its forces in eastern Europe, the US-led alliance’s deputy secretary general has said. Moscow itself has “voided of any content” the Nato-Russia Founding Act, by attacking Ukraine and halting dialogue with the alliance, Mircea Geoana told Agence France-Presse.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. I am handing you on to Geneva Abdul.
Russia’s RIA Novosti agency is reporting that five people have died after shelling in the centre of Donetsk by the Ukrainian military. They report:
According to the mayor of the city, Aleksey Kulemzin, the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired at two schools and a gymnasium, among other things.
On its official Telegram channel, the self-proclaimed Donetsk people’s republic’s territorial defence HQ has told residents:
Take care of yourself and your family, try not to leave the house unnecessarily. Do not leave the shelter during the shelling.
Another post on the channel says:
According to updated information, as a result of the shelling of the AFU in Donetsk, the number of victims increased to 21 people: 5 were killed and 16 were injured. Among the dead is a teenager born in 2009.
The claims have not been independently verified. The Kremlin has described attacks on civilian infrastructure and children’s institutions in Russian-controlled territory as “outrageous”.
Russian forces have repeatedly denied deliberately targeting civilian areas in Ukraine. Ukraine’s prosecutors say they are investigating hundreds of cases of alleged war crimes against the civilian population by Russian troops.
Eurovision song contest winners Kalush Orchestra have auctioned off their trophy to raise money for the Ukrainian army.
The band, whose song Stefania was triumphant in Turin earlier this month, said they raised $900,000 (£713,000) by auctioning off the glass microphone, and a further $370,000 by raffling off the pink bucket hat frontman Oleh Psiuk wore during the performance.
Read more here: Eurovision winners Kalush Orchestra auction off trophy for Ukrainian army
Ukraine’s interior ministry has posted an update to Telegram on demining activities in the Kyiv region. They say:
Sappers of the National Guard continue to demine the territory of Kyiv region, which was liberated from the occupying forces almost two months ago. During this time, the guards sappers found and disposed of about 10,500 explosive devices.
However, the work continues, and in some areas there are still a lot of unexploded ordnance and mines that need to be disposed of.
Russia’s ministry of defence has issued its daily operational briefing. Among the claims, which have not been indepedently verified, they say:
- They killed “up to 320” Ukrainian service personnel in airstrikes.
- Russian air defence systems shot down 15 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles.
- Four installations of the BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system, 46 weapons and Ukrainian military equipment were destroyed.
- An ammunition depot near Novomikhailovka in the self-proclaimed Donetsk people’s republic was destroyed.
- An artillery strike on a hangar on the territory of the Okean shipbuilding plant in the city of Nikolaev destroyed more than 15 Ukrainian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.
The Russian RIA Novosti news agency is carrying reports of a large explosion in Melitopol, a city in the Zaporizhzhia region that is now occupied by Russia. It quotes Vladimir Rogov, who is a member of the new military council imposed on the region, as saying:
Today, at about 7.40 am, a powerful explosion was heard in the very centre of the city. Windows and walls in the houses were trembling. The city centre was filled with black smoke.
RIA Novosti claim a source in the new local government says that a car exploded, parked near one of the city hall buildings in Melitopol. It is thought that a Ukrainian sabotage group were behind it. Rogov said in a Telegram message about the incident:
Such attacks will not stop as long as the UGIL (Ukrainian state of Ivano-Frankivsk and Lvov) terrorist entity exists. The Zelenskiy regime hates peaceful life in Melitopol and other liberated territories. Demilitarization and Denazification must be carried out to the end in the entire post-Ukrainian space!
The reports of the explosion have not been independently verified.
European Union members should be able to reach an agreement on a new sanctions package against Russia, including imposing restrictions on Russian oil imports, during talks being held by officials, according to EU top diplomat Josep Borrell.
Reuters reports he told broadcaster France Info: “We need to decide unanimously. There were tough talks yesterday afternoon, as well as this morning. I think that this afternoon, we will be able to offer to the heads of the member states an agreement.”
European Union governments failed to reach an agreement on an embargo on Russian oil on Sunday as they seek to prepare an agreement in time for an EU summit on Monday afternoon.
Asked if plans to include a ban to import Russian oil could fail over the resistance from Hungary and other eastern European states, Borrell said: “No, I don’t think so … there will be an agreement in the end.”
A proposal under discussion among EU countries on Sunday evening would ban Russian oil delivered to the EU by sea by the end of the year, but exempt oil delivered by the Russian Druzhba pipeline, which supplies Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
“We have to take the individual circumstances of everybody into account,” Borrell said, adding that a EU-wide solution should give the three countries which accounted for 7% to 8% of Russian oil imports “more time to adjust.”
This is how Reuters has summed up the latest developments in Ukraine, reporting that Russian troops have entered the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk. Regional governor Serhiy Gaidai has described the fighting as “very fierce”.
Gaidai has also appeared on national television in Ukraine to say “Unfortunately we have disappointing news, the enemy is moving into the city.”
Incessant shelling has left Ukrainian forces defending ruins in Sievierodonetsk, but their refusal to withdraw has slowed a massive Russian offensive across the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
“Some 90% of buildings are damaged. More than two-thirds of the city’s housing stock has been completely destroyed. There is no telecommunication,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a televised speech.
“Capturing Sievierodonetsk is a fundamental task for the occupiers … We do all we can to hold this advance.”
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday said the “liberation” of the Donbas, an industrial region which includes Luhansk and Donetsk, was an “unconditional priority” for Moscow.
A series of portraits by the award-winning British photographer Lewis Khan from the Romanian border documents the stories of mothers and children who fled Ukraine as bombs and bullets rained down on their homes. You can see our photo essay here:
Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk, has posted to his social media a further update about the situation in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. He writes:
[Russians] are consolidating on the outskirts of Sievierodonetsk, the killed Russians are not taken away, the corpse smell filled the regional centre. Two residents were killed, five injured.
[Russians] are trying to surround Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, further continue to storm the direction of the “road of life”, to cut it off.
Over the past 24 hours, 14 enemy attacks have been fought back, two artillery systems have been destroyed, 11 units of combat armoured equipment and 10 enemy vehicles. Air defence units shot down two winged missiles and three Cube-type Bpla.
Yesterday, the [Russians] were hard at Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk. In the regional centre in the old area of the city, two were killed, five more were injured, including in a village near the city. All [now] at the hospital. About 50 houses were destroyed in the area per day.
[ad_2]
Source link
